Explore and Eperience Fire Defensive Home and Garden Design + Materials
Location: 942 Las Virgennes Road, Calabasas (Map)
Open: Watch for RCDSMM and SMM-FSC Events
Cost: Free
The Fire Resilient Home + Garden is a project of the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains (RCDSMM) in collaboration with the LA County Fire Department’s Forestry Division. It models wildfire-ready home materials as well as idyllic, defensible space and wildlife habitat.
The Home
The Fire Resilient Home, designed to model an array of fire defensive materials and practices, showcases several wildfire-ready home retrofit and building strategies.
When the home was initially built, it was fitted with a cement skirt of 4-feet, just shy of current 5-foot ember resistant zone recommendations. Beyond that space, a mix of native and non-native “arson grasses” extended from the home into the nearby oak woodlands.
A similar mix of grasses still grows on the other three sides of the structure – they will soon be removed in favor a new wildfire-ready garden. In the meantime, they are mown to match the Department’s brush clearance requirements.
The Garden
The first part of the garden renovated extends from the structure toward the property’s deep oak woodlands. During Santa Anas, the wind blows from this direction toward the home.
FormLA Landscaping designed the defensible space in collaboration with LA County Fire Department’s Forestry Division and the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains. A separate contractor installed the foliage. The Forestry Division team assigned to the station now maintains, evolves, and expands the planted spaces. They also propagate foliage for an expansive and ever-growing nursery of hyper-local native foliage.
Here is what you’ll find in each zone of the garden – and how the same strategies can be applied in a residential landscape:
Ember Resistant Zone (0-5 feet)
A stormwater-infiltrating rock bioswale exaggerates the required 5-feet of ember resistance in residential areas. The swale collects overflow from the metal cistern that collects stormwater from the structure’s roof. While made of rock near the structure, the swale gradually transforms into a lush, grassy riparian area as it extends into the lean and green zone. There it meets a pre-existing dry river of rock.
Lean and Green Zone (5-30 feet)
An array of hyper-local, high-habitat impact native foliage and multitude of new trees now sit in the 5-30 feet between the home and oak woodland. Still young, effectively spaced for year round maintenance, and deeply enjoyed by resident wildlife, the garden will grow ever more lush, leafy and lovely.
The garden will play an important role in fire defense. Well-maintained, healthy, hydrated, heat-and drought resilient foliage can intercept embers that might otherwise fly or bounce to engage the home. Note these components in touring the space:
Supportive Understory
- Protected oak trees: The canopies of 3-5 year old Coast Live Oak were pruned 6-feet from the ground. This protects them from ignition as well as minimizing the chance of endangering the nearby structure. Their own leaf litter is their only understory, as it presents little danger of igniting the tree and decomposes into the ideal fertilizer to support these gems.
- New trees: A mix of smaller native trees and fruit trees now grow where in the formerly tree-free arson-grass meadow. By cooling and shading the area, they will help the low-growing foliage hold its hydration in the high, dry heat of Calabasas summers. For now, it’s the deer, not the foresters, who enjoy them most! They frequently snack on the fruit and foliage of the young canopies and their understories.
- Hyper-Local Habitat Plants: While newly installed, fast growing and fragrant native sages, feathery California Sagebrush, dancing Currant, and delightfully deep green Beach Strawberry quickly filled-in their intended territory. Others need more time to grow. Even as they reach full size, open space will remain between clusters of foliage. This minimizes maintenance needs and serves ground-nesting birds, bees and other creatures.
- Decomposed Granite Trails: A trail meanders through the garden and into the wildland. In garden, it makes for a delightful, incline-free stroll where visitors can see seasonal blooms, breathe-in fragrant foliage, and witness the birds, butterflies and other pollinators drawn to the space. It also serves as an ember resistant buffer weaving through the greenery.
- Smart Irrigation: Hydration is a critical component of a fire defensive garden. Even hyper-local, strategically planted native foliage needs irrigation near structures to serve a defensive role. The hydrozoned irrigation in this space is low-flow, subsurface, drip irrigation on a weather-based controller – and invisible. It keeps water use to a minimum and delivers water to the roots, where plants need it most.
Thin Zone (30-100)
The thinned zone transitions the irrigated, curated, and maintained garden areas into the natural oak woodland. While this zone is minimally planted, it is still maintained. Here, foresters:
- Weed out “arson grasses” that can reseed themselves from nearby residential gardens,
- Preserve oak trees, particularly young oaks, by keeping any other foliage at a distance,
- Limb-up juvenile oak canopies once trunks mature,
- Sample naturally-growing, hyper-local foliage for propagation and sharing, and
- Occasionally add new, native foliage from their propagations.
Surrounding Wildland
While not actively managed, foresters monitor and engage in the wildland beyond the structures of the station and their landscaped zones. They maintain trails and fire breaks, and sample hyper-local foliage for propagation. They remove non-native plants known to alter native habitats and increase the risk for wildfire. Over the past decades, they have rewilded the oak woodland, planting hyperlocal oaks to replace the invasive conifers once featured on Twin Peaks.
We’re delighted the Forestry Division and LA County Fire Department have created this resource and regularly open their space to the general public. We hope you’ll visit the home and garden with us or during one of the many fire department, fire safe council or other community events hosted on site.
by the Santa Monica Mountains Fire Safe Council.
Programs
RCDSMM and local Fire Safe Councils host wildfire education events onsite. Watch their event schedules for chances to learn about wildfire prepared building and retrofits as well as fire defensive landscaping practices.
The Nursery
LA County Fire Department foresters run a nursery of hyperlocal plants propagated from foliage in the surrounding wildland. Their expansive collection includes Coast Live Oak, manzanita, Rosa Californica, Dudleya, Woolly Blue Curls, just to name a few.
Looking to plant a native garden in the area? They’ve been known to share their creations!
Plant Palettes
Here is the plant palette for the space, as well as a fire defensive demonstration garden in the foothills of Sierra Madre. It’s important to note that no plant is fire proof. All plants can and will burn, and, regardless of plant choice, maintenance and supplemental irrigation are essential to a fire prepared space. Caveats noted, we have good reasons for recommending these plants for high fire severity areas. This fire defensive palette can:
- Help you avoid buying arson grasses and other quick-ignition and explosive plants,
- Root deeply and can help retain slopes and soils, even if they burn to the ground,
- Thrive in high heat and low water conditions, which can help them resist ignition,
- Require little maintenance when properly spaced and placed at planting,
- Hold little dry material when properly maintained, and
- Drop little leaf litter.
Aside from their fire defensive benefits, these palettes also support wildlife, attract birds and butterflies, bring delightful fragrance, seasonal change, and year round color to a landscape.
Resources and Sources
